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The 411 on B-2-B Sets

Okay, I posted this in a blog post, but thought it would be nice to have it here as well...

Since 3 of the Raptors' 4 victories have been against teams on the second game of a back-to-back set, I decided to see how many such situations we will encounter this year. First of all, you can find out how many B2B games each team plays at the bottom of this article: http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...m-the-schedule .

Since the average seems to be 20 B2B games per team, and the fact that we have 21, I find it sad that we only get 18 opponents on such nights. [I just checked our schedule, and I can only count 20 B2B nights...]

Anyhow, here is who we play on the second game of a B2B (including games already played):

I think about 8 of those should still be winnable (which would make it 8-12 for the year on B2B nights). That would still be pretty good. And here is who plays us on a second night of B2B sets (including games already played):

Of those, about 5 of the previous-night opponents are pretty weak (NJ twice, NY, MIL, MIN), so our opponent may not be that tired. Other than that, I would expect the Raps to drop maybe the BOS game and the ORL game. That's it. That would make it 11-7, and if all predictions here are correct, this would even out with our own B2B record. Not too bad, I suppose.

Now if only the Raptors could figure out how to beat teams NOT on a B2B and NOT named the Hornets...

It's too hard to predict now-a-days with the team. I mean, for the most part you would think the Raptors would take advantage of weaker opponents, but we continue to disappoint. (i.e. Grizzlies and a shorthanded Spurs squad)

But yes, we need to figure out ways to beat teams not on a B2B, but we need to figure out beating teams period. It all starts with the defense.